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Why Unmastered?
Home music listeners rarely have an opportunity to hear the final mix of an album. Before they are cut to lacquer for vinyl production, or digitally prepared for CDs or hi-res download, final mixes are revised by mastering engineers to accommodate the technical requirements of those media, and the conditions of the marketplace.
Mixing and mastering are two different arts, with very different purposes.
In the mixing stage of a multichannel acoustic jazz recording, the goal is to recreate as closely as possible the balance among the instruments, and the soundstage in which the players were positioned (or would be positioned in an ideal venue). The final mix, in theory, should be the best representation of the performance.
Mastering engineers are confronted with a different set of challenges. If a recording is intended for release on CD, mastering engineers may boost the gain and impose peak limiting to increase perceived loudness and energy by “squeezing” the dynamic range. The same processing used in the preparation of CDs may also be used for hi-res releases, even though, from an audiophile’s perspective, downloads played through a high-quality computer-based audio system wouldn’t benefit from being mastered to high gain.
While reviewing the Songlines Recordings album Canada Day III, NativeDSD’s mastering engineer Tom Caulfield became aware of a technical obstacle: the released album had been mastered at high gain with peak limiting at or near 0dB. The tracks were unsuitable for higher rate DSD conversion.
That prompted a search for the original, unmastered final mixes. When they were located, Songlines label owner Tony Reif and I compared them to the released versions and confirmed that the unmastered tracks had wider dynamic range, better separation, increased soundstage depth and more truthful timbres. The final mixes recreated the sound captured in the studio.
For this group of Songlines albums, NativeDSD offers the unmastered final mixes in their original recorded resolution and in NativeDSD higher rate DSD. Harris Eisenstadt’s albums Canada Day II, Canada Day III, and Canada Day IV in their unmastered editions reveal the nuances, and convey the impact of the performances, in superb sonic detail.
Canada Day II (Unmastered Edition)
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Canada Day II
An album of melodic new jazz with a dash of world music influence that features thoughtful arrangements and skillful soloing.
In a 2011 interview with Tony Reif, Harris Eisenstadt characterized the music on Canada Day II:
“No matter how detailed my scores are, the strength and vibrancy of the music comes from the band finding its collective voice through rehearsals and performances. I’m interested in freedom and structure and different ways they can co-exist.”
The instrumentation for the three Canada Day albums in the NativeDSD unmastered edition bundle is reminiscent of classic Blue Note post-bop era lineups, though the ensemble draws on a wide range of influences and inspirations beyond New York jazz in the mid-1960s. Bandleader and composer Harris Eisenstadt did his MFA in African American music, with a focus on traditional and contemporary African percussion. Listeners will notice that influence running through many of his compositions.
The lively rhythmic elements and well-rehearsed arrangements keep the music buoyant and accessible. In “To Seventeen”, trumpet player Nate Wooley, who often works in a more experimental free improvisation context, inflects his horn timbre with subtle nods to tradition. His dialogue with tenor player Matt Bauder towards the end of the piece demonstrates how attuned the band members are to the mood of the music. The interplay of Eivind Opsvik’s dancing bass lines, Chris Dingman’s airy vibraphone and Eisenstadt’s forceful percussion is a highlight of “To Be”.
Canada Day II captures the group at a point in time when Harris Eisenstadt knew what he wanted to say as a composer, and had assembled a group of collaborators who could bring out the best in his scores. They set themselves a high artistic bar, which was raised even higher on the two subsequent albums.
- Nate Wooley, trumpet
- Matt Bauder, tenor saxophone
- Chris Dingman, vibraphone
- Eivind Opsvik, bass
- Harris Eisenstadt, drums, compositions
- 24 bit/88.2K recording
Canada Day III (Unmastered Edition)
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Canada Day III
Canada Day III further explores the musical possibilities arising from a piano-less quintet of trumpet, tenor sax, vibraphone, bass and drums. The ensemble has developed a distinctive sound, and drummer-composer Harris Eisenstadt’s writing has grown more confident; tunes move effortlessly in and out of the head arrangements through eddies of group interactions into free-spirited solos. The music is solidly rooted in 1960’s post-bop jazz while following a determinedly modernist course.
On a wave of shimmering cymbals, a flowing bass pulse, the sheen of vibraphone chords and see-sawing saxophone / trumpet exchanges, the opener “Slow and Steady” establishes a mood of introspection. A highlight of “Settles” is Nate Wooley’s throaty trumpet timbre, and the ease with which he covers the instrument’s range. “A Whole New Amount of Interactivity” makes a virtue of economy: the arrangement of the piece assigns units of writing to different-sized groupings of musicians. The flow from larger to smaller numbers of players within the course of the piece invites the listener into a closer connection with the performance.
Canada Day III introduced a new bassist to the ensemble, Garth Stevens. In the span of a few bars, Stevens’ bowed, harmonics-laden introduction to “The Magician of Lublin” segues into crisply propulsive walking bass lines. His impeccable time grounds the band more firmly than their previous bassist. Bass, drums, and vibes lock into grooves, providing solid support for the horn players’ flights of improvisation. You might never have heard a trumpet solo quite like Nate Wooley’s on this piece: he sings, vocalizes and growls, the Harmon mute in and out of the trumpet bell. Chris Dingman brings to the vibraphone a melodic sensibility reinforced by the mallet instrument’s percussive impact. On this track especially, the evolution of a group sound is evidenced by Matt Bauder’s incorporation of Nate Wooley’s approach to shaping sound. It’s not easy to get a saxophone to do things that a trumpet can do.
For Canada Day III, Eisenstadt brought the band to Water Music Recorders, a studio that was well-equipped to document their performances in vivid detail. On the lovely “Song for Sara”, engineer Sean Kelly captures the air around the cymbals, detail in the horn timbres, and the slow decay of the vibraphone’s sustained chords. The unmastered version provides a more realistic representation of the performance than was heard in the original release. It’s a pure pleasure in higher rate DSD.
- Nate Wooley, trumpet
- Matt Bauder, tenor saxophone
- Chris Dingman, vibraphone
- Garth Stevenson, bass
- Harris Eisenstadt, drums, compositions
- 24 bit/88.2K recording
Canada Day IV (Unmastered Edition)
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Canada Day IV
Composer-drummer Harris Eisenstadt describes the year that passed between the first rehearsals and the recording session for this album as an opportunity for the music to breathe and grow. While all the elements of the preceding Canada Day albums are present, multipart compositions, melodic interplay between the horns, silky vibraphone sounds, and the pulsing drive of the bass and drums, Canada Day IV moves the project into freer territory.
The opening track, “After Several Snowstorms”, establishes a mood of uncertainty; is Matt Bauder playing an intro or launching straight into his tenor solo? Chris Dingman’s vibraphone seems to float below the surface of Nate Wooley’s serpentine trumpet solo until the vibes gradually emerge, in a murmured exchange with the bass and cymbals. Then, an abrupt ending confounds the listener’s expectations, like a door being closed before you can hear the end of an intriguing conversation.
Raising questions without providing all the answers: a thematic strand that weaves through the compositions. Matt Bauder’s tenor solo on “Life’s Hurtling Passage Onward” evokes the smoky atmosphere of a late-night jazz dive, while Nate Wooley’s trumpet passage pulls and stretches the notes into an anguished monologue. Like a fading dream, Wooley’s solo gradually transitions into the coda, with Chris Dingman’s spacious vibes bringing the piece to a calm – if ambiguous – conclusion.
In the introduction to “What’s Equal to What”, new bassist Pascal Niggenkemper bows the instrument with impeccable intonation, in a virtuoso display of timbral shading. Throughout the album, his expansive sense of time shifts the ensemble towards more openness, while holding down the pulse that drives group passages with bursts of rhythmic energy.
The closing track, “Meli Melo”, begins with a lengthy dialogue for vibraphone and tenor sax that transitions into a full-throated climax with the full band. This unmastered mix presents the quiet and forceful segments with equal clarity and detail, in the original dynamics of the studio performance.
Canada Day IV was recorded in 24/192 by Sean Kelly at Water Music Recorders, Hoboken NJ, a remarkable facility that, sadly, is no longer in operation. This album, and Harris Eisenstadt’s subsequent Songlines recording “Recent Developments”, were among the last jazz sessions recorded in that studio. The superb sound quality, in higher rate DSD and original resolution, will please even the most demanding audiophile jazz listener.
- Nate Wooley, trumpet
- Matt Bauder, tenor saxophone
- Chris Dingman, vibraphone
- Pascal Niggenkemper, bass
- Harris Eisenstadt, drums, compositions
- 24 bit/192K recording
